


Afterword

by Molly



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen, SPN 5.22, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-15
Updated: 2010-05-15
Packaged: 2017-10-09 11:10:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molly/pseuds/Molly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing really ends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Afterword

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that this story contains SPOILERS for Supernatural episode 5.22.

It's a hard thing, giving up prayer.

Most people pray several times a day. Most of the time, they don't realize they're doing it. They send out little wishes, preferences, never really addressed to anyone in particular but always, always asking for something. _No rain today, let me get through this, don't say 'root canal', please all green lights, don't die._ It mostly doesn't work, but sometimes it does. Either way, they all keep doing it, and that's a good thing. Everything gets heard.

Dean Winchester used to say his prayers every night before his parents tucked him into bed. Later, when Mary had been taken from him and John had stopped tucking him in for the most part, he said something like prayers, quietly, when he really needed something and when he was really sure Sammy couldn't hear him. When even that seemed pointless, his voice got a little harder to hear, but it still came through sometimes. _Bring Dad back safe. Just get us through to pay day. Let me make this shot. Please, not Sam._

The day Sam died to close a hole in the world and trap Lucifer inside it, Dean stopped praying altogether -- not out of anger or any misguided desire for revenge, but because he stopped wishing for things. Dad was gone, Sam was gone. He didn't notice the rain. Red lights didn't seem to matter so much anymore. And though blood and pain and death and loss had been heaped upon him and his family across more years than anyone could reasonably be expected to bear, he had always been blessed with very good dental health.

This, mind you, in spite of all the pie.

When Dean opened the front door and found Sam on the porch, he didn't stop to ask questions, he didn't try any of the old tests of holy water, salt, or silver. He just hugged his brother with his whole body and his whole heart, and said, "Oh my God, Sam. Sammy. Oh my God," while tears ran down his face. He wouldn't want anyone to know that, but it's true. Sam said, "Dean, it's all right, I'm all right. Jesus, you're breaking my neck, _ow_," but he was holding on just as tight as Dean was. For a very long time, neither of them let go.

It was a reunion that had taken centuries to engineer, consumed the lives of devils and angels, and people, too. And though it was not the reason for the largely silent War that had raged across Heaven and Hell, the world between existed to contain it because Sam and Dean Winchester had fought for it, and won. They're fighting for it still, every day, back on the long roads with their rock salt and holy water, together. Where they belong.

Neither of them said thank you, then or later, but that's all right. I'm not in it for the feedback -- and anyway, I knew what they meant.

**Author's Note:**

> Note 1: Molly is not God!  
> Note 2: Molly is, at least partially, in it for the feedback. :)


End file.
